Supernatural Topics

• anthropology of religion
• western theology
• supernatural explanation
• supernatural beliefs
• religious spirituality
• legendary characters
• natural explanation
• nature of god
• supernaturalist
• belief system
• immortal soul
• predictive power
• preternatural
• poltergeists
• leprechauns
• occultism
• mdash
• great joy
• epistemology
• human history

Related Images

Source

Source

del.icio.us Tags

• supernatural
• research
• science
• wikipedia
• wiki
• toread
• philosophy
• interesting
• unsorted
• ?!?
• naturalism
• paranormal
• supernaturalism
• thought
• thoughts
• yay
• theme
• physics
• design
• strange

Supernatural, Supernatural

Supernatural beliefs have existed in many cultures throughout human history.

Supernatural themes are often associated with paranormal and occult ideas, suggesting for possibility of interaction with the supernatural by means of summoning or trance for instance.

Concepts in the supernatural domain are closely related to concepts in religious spirituality and occultism or spiritualism. Additionally, by definition anything that exists naturally is not supernatural. The term "supernatural" is often used interchangeably with paranormal or preternatural — the latter typically limited to an adjective for describing abilities which appear to exceed the bounds of possibility (see the nature of God in Western theology, anthropology of religion, and Biblical cosmology). Likewise, legendary characters such as vampires, poltergeists and leprechauns are considered supernatural.

By its own definition, science is incapable of examining or testing for the existence of things that have no physical effects, because its methods rely on the observation of physical effects. Proponents of supernaturalism claim that their belief system is more flexible, which allows more diversity in terms of intuition and epistemology.

The question then becomes what criteria shall one use to prefer one explanation over another, and one must be careful not to confuse the phenomenon with the explanation. We may agree that a bush has burst into flames; where we may differ is in the explanation for the cause of that event. The supernaturalist in that instance prefers the supernatural explanation based on one or more criteria of preference. It could be because the explanation includes constructs such as an immortal soul and other purported phenomena, such as the soul rising to a place of great joy upon being released at death, and they find this very attractive. The naturalist may prefer the natural explanation because such explanations are required to have predictive power, and being able to predict in a reliable way what will happen when a certain set of circumstances is present is something they find attractive. There are many people that are comfortable with accepting both explanations to satisfy several preferences; a supernatural explanation that provides comfort from the thought of death, and a natural explanation because of its utility in reliably controlling fire. For example, a Christian may accept the theories of Evolution and the Big Bang, but still explain reality as a deliberate creation of their god. One person may be a naturalist because they are driven by a preference for predictability, rather than comfort; another person may be a supernaturalist because they prefer an explanation that makes them feel better about their eventual death, rather than how useful it is in explaining actual reality.

Source: Wikipedia > Supernatural